Homely Gopher Tortoises Finally Get A Little Protection

Nicol and her husband, Bob, weren`t impressed when a real estate agent showed them 10 acres of pasture in Anthony, a tiny town a dozen miles north of Ocala. Then a gopher tortoise scrambled by. ``We were just about to walk away,`` said Ellen, ``but when we saw the gopher, we said, `That`s it. We`ll take it.` The guy thought we were nuts.``

The Nicols now live on the 10 acres, which is pitted with gopher burrows. Their mobile home serves as the informal headquarters of the 7-year-old Gopher Tortoise Council. The council`s members -- scientists and lay people in six states -- work to protect the gopher, which they fear could become extinct within 40 years.

Nicol publishes The Tortoise Burrow, the council newsletter devoted to the plight of the gopher. She has no formal training in biology, though she said she has read hundreds of books about turtles, talked with numerous experts and observed scores of turtles in her 61 years.

In Florida, the gopher is a species of special concern, which affords it less protection than animals classified as threatened or endangered. The gopher is being considered for federal listing as a threatened species in part of its southeastern range.

To most northerners, a gopher is a burrowing rodent about the size of a rat. Down South, however, the gopher is a burrowing tortoise that can grow as heavy as 11 pounds with a shell as long as 13 inches. Tall-talking Theodore Roosevelt once said Florida gophers were so big that if he stood on one it could walk away with him. Most are about the size of a hard hat.

This clumsy looking creature has been around for 60 million years, but during the past century its numbers have dwindled to about 1.2 million in Florida -- about 30 percent of its population a century ago.

Gophers live in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, but Florida, with about 80 percent of all gophers, is the animal`s stronghold. Florida is also the only state where gopher hunting is legal, a fact that upsets most members of the Gopher Tortoise Council.

Gophers are in a fix for several reasons. Development is bulldozing their burrows. Backwoods Southerners have a tradition of yanking them out of burrows and turning them into gopher stew. Charity tortoise races, whose organizers take gophers from their habitat but don`t always return them, can upset gopher colonies. And the gopher has trouble replenishing its ranks; as an animal that can live more than 40 years, it matures and reproduces even more slowly than it moves.

``Habitat destruction -- urbanization and agricultural practices -- is the major factor causing the decline of the gopher tortoise,`` said Joan Diemer, a research scientist with the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission in Gainesville.

In South Florida, development has nearly wiped out gopher territory. In north and central Florida, too, new subdivisions, shopping centers and commercial forestry are bumping out the tortoise.

Gopher meat is considered a delicacy by some rural Southerners and by Minorcan descendants around St. Augustine. Before it became illegal to sell gophers, truckloads of the animals could be seen on the highway headed for market.

During the past two years, in part because of the tortoise council`s efforts, the game commission has reduced the gopher hunting season from six months to three -- October, November and December -- and reduced the bag limit from five gophers to two. The commission also has drawn up stricter guidelines for gopher races.

Moving displaced gophers to protected land is a possible solution to the gopher`s plight, and researchers are conducting experiments to see how well it works.

The homely gopher doesn`t enjoy the empathy that humans have for the furry Florida panther or the cute manatee, even if the gopher is deserving of protection.

``Some people dispute this and get mad when I say it, but gophers are ugly,`` said Nicol. ``They`re so ugly that they`re appealing, because they`re one of nature`s animals out there making a living against great odds. They may seem tough with that shell, but they`re really very vulnerable.``